tery of Auchterarder, for denying that any pre-requisite qualification was necessary on the part of the sinner for coming to Christ; and this year, 1719, they, at the instigation of Principal Haddow of St Andrews, commenced a prosecution against Mr James Hog of Carnock, who had published an edition of the Marrow, Alexander Hamilton minister of Airth, James Brisbane minister at Stirling, and John Warden minister at Gargunnock, who had advocated its principles: which ended in an act of the General Assembly, forbidding all under their inspection in time coming to teach or preach any such doctrines. This act of Assembly was by Boston and his friends brought before the presbytery of Selkirk, who laid it before the synod of Merse and Teviotdale. Nothing to any purpose was done in the synod; but the publicity of the proceedings led to a correspondence with Mr James Hog, Mr Ralph Erskine, and others, by whom a representation and petition was given into the Assembly, 1721. This representation, however, was referred to the commission. When called before the commission, on Thursday, May 18, Mr Hog not being ready, and Mr Bonar of Torphichen gone home, Mr Boston had the honour of appearing first in that cause. On that day they were borne down by universal clamour. Next day, however, Principal Haddow was hardly pushed in argument by Mr Boston, and Logan of Culeross was completely silenced by Mr Williamson of Inveresk. The commission then gave out to the twelve representing brethren twelve queries, to which they were required to return answers against the month of March next These answers, luminous and brief beyond any thing of the kind in our language, were begun by Mr Ebenezer Erskine, but greatly extended and improved by Mr Gabriel Wilson of Maxton. For presuming thus to question the acts of Assembly, the whole number were admonished and rebuked. Against this sentence they gave in a protestation, on which they took instruments in due form; but it was not allowed to be read. In the meantime, Mr Boston prepared an edition of the Marrow, illustrated by copious notes, which was published in 1726, and has ever since been well known to the religious public. The Assembly, ashamed, after all, of the act complained of, remodelled it in such a way as to abate somewhat its grossness, though, in the process, it lost little of its venom.
Following out his plan of illustrating gospel truth, Boston preached to his people a course of sermons on the covenants of works and of grace, which hare long been in the hands of the public, and duly prized by judicious readers. His last appearance in the General Assembly was in the year 1729, in the ease of Professor Simson, where he dissented from the sentence of the Assembly as being no just testimony of the church's indignation against the dishonour done by the said Mr Simson to our glorious Redeemer, the Great God and our Saviour, nor agreeable to the rule of God's word in such cases, tor a fit means to bring the said Mr Simson himself to repentance, of which, he added, he had yet given no evidence. This dissent, however, for the sake of the peace of the church, which some said it might endanger, he did not insist to have recorded on the Assembly's books. His last public work was a letter to the presbytery, which met at Selkirk, May 2, 1732, respecting the overture for settling vacant parishes; which breathes all the ardour and piety of his more early productions, and in which he deprecates the turning of that overture into a standing law, as what cannot fail to be the ruin of the church, and he prays that his letter may be recorded as a testimony against it. His health had been for a number of years declining; he was now greatly emaciated; and he died on the twentieth of May, 1732, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. Mr Boston was married shortly after his settlement at Simprin to Katharine Brown, a worthy pious woman, by whom he had ten children, four of whom only survived him. Thomas, the youngest, was ordained to the pastoral care of the parish of Oxnam; but removing thence to Jedburgh
